Past Lives
Here are a few things I wrote many years ago. I am not the man who wrote these things anymore, at least not to the same present-tense-intensity as I was then, but that man is still alive inside me. Be merciful to your past self and pray your future self will be merciful to you.
When blogs were big, I blogged. I've decided to archive two of my old blog websites here because I like what I wrote, and in both cases, the material chronicles specific times in my life and considers things particular to those seasons. The pieces work together as individual series.
The links will take you to the first post in each series. I've preserved the original publication date of each entry.
Music
I used to want to be a professional songwriter. That's a longer story for another time. However, in 2008 and 2009, I recorded a few of the songs I had written and released them, quietly. By the time I wrote, recorded, and released these tracks, I didn't want to be a songwriter anymore. To be clear, recording these songs wasn't what changed my mind about being a songwriter. That part was fun. Like I said, that's a longer story for another time.
These little albums have been sitting on Bandcamp since I published them. I'm archiving them here because I think about them often; I think about the guy who made them (me); and I want him represented here too. You are welcome to download them from Bandcamp if you want, though I cannot imagine why you would.
Warning: almost all of these recordings consist of nothing but me and my banjo—before you ask, no, I had never listened to a second of Sufjan Stevens' music when I wrote and recorded these songs; a banjo is just all I had—and I recorded them in my closet on my Macbook straight into Garageband. We might very generously call them "demos." I was a bit of a demo of a person in 2008. Listen at your own risk.